Jess Castle and the Eyeballs of Death

by M B Vincent

  Jess knelt and took Moose’s collar again as her father towelled the dog’s coat, before releasing him to shake the remaining water from his fur with a forty-kilogram shudder.

  ‘I have a vague plan to convert one of the barns just to deal with this,’ said the Judge. ‘Running hot water. Walk-in tub. Industrial hairdryer. As it stands, the bathroom needs a wash after this bugger has one.’

  Jess just looked at him. ‘Dad.’

  The Judge looked back. He was very still.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I’d have come back at Christmas if I’d known.’

  The Judge reanimated. ‘First of all, it wasn’t that big a deal. I was packing boxes in the loft. And then I was in a room at the hospital. Simple as that. Didn’t feel a thing, actually. None of that left arm, crushing chest pain stuff they go on about.’

  Jess shook her head. ‘You make it sound like a sneeze.’

  ‘Well exactly. It came, it went.’

  ‘Dad,’ pleaded Jess. Her voice cracked a little on the simple word.

  His hands planted themselves in his pockets. ‘Now look. We’ve all had plenty to deal with. There was my bloody retirement. Your mother.’

  ‘Everyone knew except me.’

  ‘I didn’t want to bother you with it, Jess. You were still getting over Mum. And you . . . Well, it’s done now. There we are.’ The Judge drained the bath, fiddling with the plug. He was hapless at anything domestic.

  ‘So what is the problem with your heart? Bogna said something about arctic stasis.’

  ‘Not quite.’ The Judge smiled. ‘Aortic stenosis. Quite common in men my age. Easily dealt with.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right then.’ Jess was arch. ‘So if I google “aortic stenosis” that’s what it’ll say? Easily dealt with?’

  The Judge threw the sponge into the empty bath. ‘Maybe not in so many words.’

  Jess rubbed her forehead. ‘For fuck’s sake, Dad.’

  Her father glared his courtroom glare. The one he’d used for sentencing wife beaters to three years in jail and for reprimanding ten-year-old Jess. The Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic nonsense was bad enough, but he abhorred bad language.

  Especially, Jess knew, from a woman.

  ‘Sorry. But, Dad, heart attacks kill people.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I know, but it wasn’t a big one. I’m still here. Fit as a flea. I keep myself busy, I have a routine, look after the dog. Keeps my mind off . . . things. Bogna’s a marvel. Got me on a good, proper diet.’

  ‘Yeah, I know about that.’

  ‘And I’m doing twenty K on the bike every morning.’

  ‘Dad!’ snapped Jess. ‘You sound like one of those people.’

  ‘Which people?’

  ‘The ones who say “twenty K”.’

  The Judge shook with a silent laugh. ‘Listen to me, Jessica. It’s treatable. I’m on medication, I’m taking exercise, and there’s a procedure I might be eligible for. Quite common for men my age. Easily dealt with.’

  Easily dealt with, thought Jess. Just the way her father liked it.

  Tallulah, Eden found as he chatted to her in the interview room, was self-possessed. She answered his questions with aplomb.

  Yes, she’d been up on the hill. No, she hadn’t seen Danny. He was a bit late and she’d told him before not to keep her waiting. She’d hurried away when a taller man came up through the mist. She worried it was her father, that she and her Romeo had been found out. The man wheezed. Was dragging something.

  Then Tallulah had questions for Eden.

  ‘Is anything going to happen to Danny? He’s a really good person. We’re engaged.’

  DS Eden liked Tallulah a lot. He liked the haughty way she refused DC Knott’s offer of squash, and her certainty that she would marry Danny. He sent her home in a police car. He recalled the beleaguered love on Danny’s mother’s face.

  There were a lot of loose ends in policing.

  ‘There’s nothing to read in this house,’ said Jess to her father as they cleared away after a home-made, frugal (i.e. no seconds) lunch.

  ‘Harebell House is full of books.’ The Judge put the plates in the sink. Left a mug on its side. An intelligent man, he had never brought his brain to bear on washing up. As he walked away, he said, ‘You do love a good moan, Jessica.’

  He was right on both counts. Most rooms had a smattering of books, perched lazily on tables like guests at a so-so party. The large drawing room, with windows to the front and back, was lined with built-in shelves, all of them packed with books.

  ‘Law books,’ scoffed Jess. She trailed her finger along the spines. Biographies of Prime Ministers. Victorian novels. Around the bow window that framed the lawn in small squares of green, she found Ms Georgette Heyer and Ms Barbara Cartland.

  Her mother’s books were stories of romance. Of ladies in muslin and velvet, dropping gloves in front of their beaux. They exuded a femininity that Jess had never aspired to. No heroine in those pages wore what Harriet used to call ‘bovver boots’. Nor did they go all the way on the first date.

  Jess tried to remember her last first date.

  Kidbury Road.

  The bridge.

  The long-stay car park.

  The medical centre.

  The vet’s.

  And then the long turn into the main thoroughfare. Dickinson’s bookshop smelt of old paper, dust and the proprietor’s cat. Shakespeare sat on a cushion by the cash register, judging customers and letting out the occasional sarcastically timed fart.

  Jess tickled Shakespeare under his chin. The cat struck out a vindictive paw. ‘How old are you by now?’ she asked it, and was surprised when it answered.

  ‘Almost fourteen.’

  The voice was Graham’s. He bobbed up from beneath the counter. Glasses on top of his head. A moustache as dated as the rest of him. Jess had long suspected Graham Dickinson wore tweed Y-fronts. There were no niceties. No good to see you, when did you get back? He loathed being interrupted while he read his way through his stock. With a book open in one hand, he added only, ‘Yes?’

  ‘I want a book.’ Only when she’d said it did Jess realise how obvious this sounded. She allowed Graham a regal roll of his eyes. ‘Fiction. Modern. No slushy stuff. Blockbuster, maybe.’

  ‘Right-hand shelves by the window, third row up.’ Flipping his glasses down onto his nose, Graham returned to Tolstoy.

  ‘I liked the Beeb adaptation of War and Peace.’ Jess enjoyed his tut. She waited a beat before asking, ‘Is the book as good?’

  Graham put down Tolstoy and covered Shakespeare’s ears. ‘You always were a cheeky madam,’ he said; his version of welcome home. ‘Go to the Da Vinci Code section where you belong, young lady, and leave me in the company of the greats.’

  None of the books offered the right kind of escapism. There were too many guns, too much talk of ‘gut-wrenching suspense’ on the covers. Jess wanted something outside her own experience, but nothing apocalyptic. She wasn’t in the right frame of mind to read about the planet being invaded by hyper-intelligent wasps.

  The Pagan/Occult/Superstition shelves were still by the cubbyhole which housed Graham’s kettle. She’d campaigned for him to separate ‘Pagan’ from its bedfellows, but he’d stood firm. She’d been a loyal customer, passing Wilson’s, where her school friends were spending their pocket money on lip gloss, in order to purchase Buckland’s Complete Book of Witchcraft, or Gods and Myths of Northern Europe by Ellis Davidson. She’d been a strange kid, by her own reckoning.

  Wandering back to the fiction section, Jess was considering why she needed so desperately to escape into a make-believe world – perhaps the Judge was right and her middle name had predetermined her obsession with myth – when the bell over the door tinkled.

  Rupert. Suddenly very there in his uniform of pinstripe suit and well-cut overcoat. Not looking her way, he browsed the shelves. He frowned, leaning in to read titles. He felt his chin. He made a little hmm noise. He was a useless actor.

&n
bsp; Jess cleared her throat. When Rupert twirled round, she put up her hands and said, ‘Gosh! What a surprise!’

  ‘Jess,’ said Rupert, as if she was the very last woman he expected to see in Dickinson’s Books. ‘Hi. Just looking for something to read. I love this place.’

  ‘Who are you?’ asked Graham querulously.

  ‘Oh you,’ said Rupert.

  ‘I mean it, who are you?’ Graham was not a team player. ‘Have you come to make a purchase or to waste my time?’

  ‘Bit of both,’ said Rupert. He grabbed the nearest volume. Small, red, ‘foxed’, as booksellers say, it looked old. ‘I’ll take this.’

  ‘Eighty-nine pounds, please.’

  Shakespeare looked smug as Rupert recovered his poise and took out his wallet. ‘Are you, um, sure?’ he asked weakly.

  ‘Quite sure. Eighty-nine pounds is the book’s market value.’ Graham spoke to Jess as he laboriously processed Rupert’s credit card. ‘And you? Are you buying or using my establishment as a bus shelter?’

  ‘I’m still browsing.’ Jess privately thought that the average bus shelter was cleaner than Graham’s shop, and involved less cat.

  By her side, Rupert stared at the rows of spines. ‘Still in town, then?’

  ‘For the time being.’

  ‘Don’t you have a job to go to? I recall Stephen saying something about Cambridge.’

  ‘Christ, my brother does listen occasionally. Yeah, I have a position at Cambridge, but it’s kind of messed-up.’

  ‘Was it you who messed it up?’

  ‘Actually,’ said Jess, with mock pride that made Rupert laugh, ‘I did.’

  ‘So you’re looking for another job?’

  ‘Not exactly. I’m mulling over my options.’ Jess studied the shelves as if they held the meaning of life. ‘Heard anything more about the murder?’

  From the counter, Graham interrupted. ‘The murder? A calamity! I keep Shakespeare in at night now.’

  ‘Very wise,’ said Rupert, with the merest of side-eyes at Jess.

  ‘I heard the killer drained the body and stuffed it with straw.’ Graham shivered happily.

  Rupert lowered his voice, to exclude Graham. ‘This messed-up position at Cambridge – you’re a lecturer?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a noise? Similarly, if a lecturer has no students to lecture, is she just flapping her chops? ‘I’m taking some time out.’ She groaned. ‘That sounds wanky. Next thing, I’ll be finding myself. Truth is, since you insist on knowing, I’m in limbo.’

  ‘No, you’re in Castle Kidbury.’

  Graham butted in. ‘The town’s named after her, you know.’

  Jess pushed her hand over her red face. ‘Graham, please don’t—’

  Graham came out from behind the counter to say, pedantically, ‘It’s a common misconception that Castle Kidbury is named after a castle, but look around you, dear boy. There is no castle. There’s always been a Lord Castle at Kidbury Manor. You and I, we’re mere serfs.’

  Rupert bowed, with a dandyish flourish.

  ‘If you ever do that again,’ said Jess, ‘I’ll kill you. You’ll know all this, Rupert, from Stephen.’

  ‘Yeah, ’course I do. Your brother’s very proud of his posh connections. Just think,’ said Rupert, ‘you could have been Lady Jessica.’

  ‘That amuses you?’ pouted Jess.

  ‘Frankly, yes.’

  Unlike Stephen, Jess was grateful that her father’s side of the family had lost the manor and gone into law. She made for the door. ‘Thanks, Graham,’ she called.

  ‘Next time,’ he snapped, ‘buy something.’

  Rupert was quickly at her side as she meandered along the pavement.

  ‘Don’t you have somewhere to be? Hoodlums to defend?’

  ‘Hoodlum-free day today.’ Rupert sauntered, matching her pace. His dark fringe swished over one blue eye. ‘Apart from our murder, Castle Kidbury’s a pretty crime-free place.’

  The window of Lady Jayne sported a static tableau of mannequins in pastel dress and coat combos. As if one of the dummies had come to life, a woman in man-made separates rushed out, colliding with Jess and Rupert.

  ‘For heaven’s sake—’ All was forgiven when Patricia Smalls recognised Jess. ‘Look who it is! I heard you were back.’ She air-kissed the younger woman. Patricia crackled with energy. Even a friendly greeting felt like a drone attack. ‘Did you know I’m mayor now? I am. Can you imagine?’

  Jess really couldn’t. Patricia Smalls was a family legend. The Judge had once driven the wrong way down a one-way street to avoid her. She was everywhere at once. If you spotted her coming out of the florist’s and ducked into the gift shop, you might very well come up against her by the fridge magnets. ‘Congratulations.’

  ‘It’s nothing, really. Although I did beat Marjorie Beals. Which was nice.’ Patricia looked from Jess to Rupert, then back to Jess again. ‘Aha,’ she said. Her pencilled eyebrows waggled like mating caterpillars. She brought her face close to Jess’s. Jess could see every pore in her sizeable nose. ‘He’s a catch, dear. His people have a chalet in the Norfolk Broads.’

  ‘You’re kidding!’ gasped Jess.

  Patricia Smalls seemed to consider the possibility that she was being mocked. Deciding against it, she reconfigured her mobile, slightly orange face, to convey ‘polite distress’. ‘Isn’t this murder business shocking? I mean, Mr Dike was nobody’s idea of a good citizen, but to pull him apart and sew him back together in the wrong order!’

  The rumours had taken on a life of their own. ‘I’m sure DS Eden will keep us all safe,’ said Jess.

  ‘As mayor, I’m in constant contact with him. I think of you all as my children.’ Patricia had something green on one of her prominent front teeth. ‘I’m sure all the nastiness will be tidied away before our summer day trippers start turning up.’ She looked around her, breathed in deeply. ‘Ah! Is there anything more lovely than an English market town in May?’

  Jess breathed in, too. ‘Mmm. The sweet smell of roses and blood.’

  Suddenly hawkish, Patricia asked, ‘Is your father at home?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘How is he?’ The mayor put her head to one side, as if asking after a poorly hamster. ‘Bearing up?’

  ‘Yup.’ Jess had no desire to share her father’s state of mind with this busybody.

  ‘I’ll drop in. Cheer him up. He needs a lady’s touch.’ She was off, careering like Road Runner in her size-eleven sandals down Castle Kidbury’s high street.

  ‘She’s . . .’ Rupert found himself unable to adequately describe Patricia Smalls.

  ‘Isn’t she just?’ Jess put her head on one side too. ‘How are you, Rupert? Bearing up?’

  ‘I’ll be better after a cream tea.’

  Bogna was kneading dough when Jess, full of clotted cream, got home. ‘Your father has bone to pick.’ She slapped Jess’s hand away from a cooling loaf. ‘You told Patricia Smalls he was in.’

  ‘Mea culpa.’ Jess went to open the fridge but thought better of it. ‘Where’s Moose?’

  ‘Sitting with your visitor in conservatory.’

  Intrigued, wary, Jess made her way to the Edwardian orangery that sprouted from the back of the house. She peered through the old glass. Among the palms and the dated rattan furniture, a woman bent over Moose. They seemed to be dancing.

  ‘Mary!’ Jess raced in. She stopped short of her friend. Mary didn’t like sentiment. Wasn’t at home to Mr Soppy. ‘It’s so brilliant to see you.’

  ‘Is it?’ Mary didn’t mirror Jess’s enthusiasm. ‘I had to track you down. You could have called. As far as your housemates knew, you’re a missing person.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Jess exhaled. She kept coming up hard against this brick wall of consequences. ‘I was about to call. I’ve been kind of . . . It’s difficult.’

  ‘Everything’s difficult, you eejit.’ Mary, ‘Dublin’ written through her like a stick of rock, couldn’t stay angry. N
o milk-white Colleen, she was mixed race, with hair that bobbed in corkscrews around a droll and foxy face. Sturdily built, she wore combat trousers and a vest. No bra ever troubled Mary’s frontage.

  ‘Are you staying?’ Jess was hopeful.

  ‘If you’ll have me.’ Mary took up Moose’s paws again. ‘Come here, you sexy hunk of dog. I love you. Yes I do! You’re so handsome.’

  This habit of talking to Moose as if he was human made Jess uncomfortable. ‘Get a room, why don’t you.’

  ‘She’s just jealous.’ Mary kissed Moose and let him down. She stretched, yawned. ‘I need a kip. You and me are out on the lash tonight.’

  ‘The lash? There is no lash,’ said Jess. ‘Castle Kidbury is lash-less.’

  ‘These provincial places are the worst of all.’ Mary seemed confident of her facts. ‘You told me yourself you spent your teen years smoking dope and snogging petty criminals behind the town hall.’ She threw herself down on lumpily upholstered rattan. ‘Heard you had a murder.’

  ‘Yeah. Really grisly one.’

  ‘Anyone you know?’ Mary seemed half-hopeful.

  ‘The town git.’ Jess had been so caught up in the puzzle of the murder, its mystery, that the man at the centre had been reduced to a caricature. ‘Keith Dike, I mean.’ She’d been shallow; a cardinal sin in her personal theology. ‘It wasn’t personal. I think we’ve got a maniac on our hands. The police think differently.’

  ‘Jaysus. If you’re not safe in a chocolate-box English town, where are you safe?’

  ‘Safety’s an illusion.’

  ‘Bit deep for the time of the day.’ Mary studied Jess. ‘You look tired.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I really was worried, you know. You taking off like that.’

  There were few personnel in Mary’s life; no sign of the stereotypical vast Catholic clan. Jess was important to Mary. That set off a glow in Jess’s chest and she said, ‘I’ll try to explain. After you’ve napped.’

  ‘Are you going back?’ Mary was mistress of the direct question.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Jess held up a forefinger. ‘No more questions, because I have no answers yet.’

  ‘I know a “Keep Out” sign when I see one.’ Mary jumped to her feet. ‘Right. Show me where I can lay me head for a bit. I need to be rested for the gig tonight.’